


So We Can Start Again

by kultiras



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Feelstide 2014, M/M, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Pre-Slash, Reunions, Romantic Friendship, Where Was Clint Barton During Captain America 2?, director coulson, friendship with feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 07:43:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3111683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kultiras/pseuds/kultiras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A phone call leads Phil to a long-dormant safehouse where he finds Clint, who hasn't been heard from since Hydra reappeared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So We Can Start Again

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Feelstide 2014
> 
> So many thanks to msraven for cheering me on, encouraging me to rework what I had written, and generally making this story postable in the first place. I really could not have managed this without your help. ♥ 
> 
> Many, many thanks to ladydeathfaerie for running Feelstide again this holiday season, and for being patient with me when I was running epicly behind schedule. ♥ 
> 
> Title from [Winter Song by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkOKCWDJ4iA)

“Where the hell has Fury sent you?”

Phil winced as May’s voice echoed clearly across the speaker in the car. Even if she had known that something was up as soon as Nick appeared in Phil’s office, Melinda had left to update Trip and Skye before she could learn the reason behind Nick’s visit.

“You know that old safehouse? The one kept off the grid, under the radar, and out of all the official paperwork?”

There was a moment of silence over the phone before May replied, “The lake house cabin?”

“That’s the one. Nick got a call from the secure line over there. He told me to go meet with the agent, and to consider it my belated Christmas present.”

“That’s ominously vague coming from him.”

“Not really, surprisingly enough.”

“That didn’t strike you as vague?”

“How many of us knew about that place, May?”

“You, me, Fury, Hill, Romanov, and…” She fell silent as she realized how that sentence would end.

“Exactly,” Phil replied to her unspoken answer. “You and me, we’re still SHIELD, Nick’s wherever the hell he goes, Hill’s with Stark, and Romanov’s may be at the tower or could be doing her own thing, assuming she isn’t helping Captain Rogers and Wilson. There’s only one person left and we haven’t heard from him in months. We had no way of knowing if he was even alive. But it _has_ to be him if Nick got a call from that line. You know it’s only programmed to work for us.”

“And you didn’t bother to take backup with you because…”

“Because it’s him, Melinda. If it all goes well, he’ll be the only backup I need.”

“And if it goes badly? You’re the Director now, Phil. You can’t just take risks like this without thinking it through. You need to think about the rest of us, about SHIELD.”

“Even if it goes badly, it’ll still be worth it,” Phil replied. “Listen, I’ll call you when I’ve made contact at the safehouse. In the meantime, I need you to keep the others on track.”

“Too late for that. They're throwing themselves a belated New Year's Celebration since we were all too busy chasing down the latest lead on the new Hydra base. Hunter and Bobbi are in charge of planning refreshments, which means Skye, Simmons, and Trip are trying to stop them from ordering a truck full of booze.”

“Of course they are,” Phil said dryly, “And Mack and Fitz are, what? Staying out of it?”

“Skye says they’re trying to reprogram the dwarfs to carry drinks.”

Phil blinked, and then then shook his head in amusement. “Well good luck with that.”

“When you see Barton, tell him he still owes me sixty bucks for that thing in Rio and he’d better be planning on calling me soon,” Melinda said before she hung up on Phil.

~*~*~*~

An hour later, Phil was at the lake house cabin. From the outside, it looked exactly the same as it always had—a fairly secluded rustic-looking cabin with a sturdy wooden porch. Although it didn’t look like there was anyone inhabiting the place, Phil knew that the cabin was designed in such a way that its looks were deceiving. If someone was inside, Phil wouldn’t have any idea unless they wanted him to know about it.

He walked up the short staircase cautiously, looking for traps or any other signs of danger. There was no indication that anyone was nearby, but Phil knew in his gut that Nick’s intel was accurate. Someone was already there, and if he was lucky enough to be right, it would be the one person he had been missing for months.

As he opened the door, Phil glanced about the familiar safehouse. Though he hadn’t been there in a couple of years, he still remembered the various times he’d landed there, waiting for extraction in nearby towns and occasionally spending the odd day or two of downtime lakeside.

Phil stood just inside the doorway and waited. A moment later, a figure stepped out of the shadows on the opposite side of the room. Phil watched as the other person stepped closer. Though the person approaching him was not dressed in the familiar uniform he’d expected to see, Phil realized that despite the mask and different look, the other person was dressed in a very familiar color scheme.

He may not have seen it, but Phil had heard descriptions of that uniform though, from agents who had slowly reached out to his team following the fall of SHIELD. Many of them had mentioned being rescued by someone who only identified himself as Ronin. If this was in fact Ronin standing before him, it explained quite a bit about where exactly Phil’s missing friend and asset had gone after vanishing without a trace.

Phil continued to wait for Ronin to speak, firmly believing that everything hinged on whatever it was that the other man had come there to say.

“Hi, Phil…” Ronin said, voice trailing off as he removed his mask.

“Clint…where the hell have you been?" Phil asked, urgently. “We didn’t even know if you were still _alive_! No one’s heard from you in months, and there hasn’t been a sighting of Hawkeye since Hydra made itself known.”

Clint ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “Rumlow tried to take me out—he nearly succeeded too. I let him think he had. It seemed safer that way. By the time I made it back to HQ, Project Oversight was already crashing down on the Triskelion.”

“Clint…”

“You know, at first I didn’t know how far up it went, Phil. You were with your team, Fury was supposedly dead, Nat and Cap were declared enemies, and they tried to take me out. It was safer to let Hawkeye die and figure out what to do and where to go from there.”

Clint moved towards the kitchen, and leaned against the counter, fiddling with buttons on the coffee machine until it kicked into action. He looked back at Phil and smiled sadly. “Once I realized what exactly it was that Fury and Nat had done, I ditched ‘Hawkeye’, and set out to rescue whoever I could."

Phil looked at him, simultaneously shocked by the fact that Clint had taken on such a big assignment alone, and completely unsurprised at how well he had succeeded.

“I know I could have checked in, probably should have actually,” Clint said.

“You really should have,” Phil agreed. “Some of us are pretty…displeased by that.”

“Phil…”

“We would have helped! You would have had backup, Clint! You wouldn’t have been alone out there.”

“I didn’t know how to, alright?” Clint blurted out in frustration. “Things between us have been weird the last couple of years, and I didn’t really know how to deal with that.” Not waiting for a response to that, Clint got up and went through the motions of making up two cups of coffee. As Phil watched him, he couldn’t help but note that despite the time and awkwardness, Clint still remembered exactly how to make Phil’s coffee the way that he liked it.

Moving over to the small table tucked in the corner, Clint set down both mugs and sat down, nudging another chair out for Phil. “I didn’t know how to be around you, Phil. You know nothing’s the same as it used to be.”

“It isn’t,” Phil agreed, “But you shouldn’t have let that stop you.” Phil sighed, then sat down in the proffered chair.

“I know, Phil. I just… You know at first I stayed away because of everything that went down with Loki and then it was because you were stationed on the Bus, while I was based at The Hub. You and I, we were never great at long distance.”

“That’s true,” Phil agreed. “But still, you didn’t need to do everything alone, Clint. You could have come back for help at any time. I always wanted you to come back, Clint, you have to know that.” Out of things to say at the moment, Phil picked up his mug and took a long sip of coffee.

“Yeah…I know, I swear I do, but I had already headed out as Ronin before you set up your new HQ at the Playground.” Clint paused and fiddled with his coffee cup, thinking of how to explain. “It would have been a lot easier with help, but it seemed safer to keep it as a one-man op, especially in the beginning. Some of the undercover agents turned out to be Hydra—more than I like to think about. Most of them aren’t a problem anymore, but some are still out there.”

Clint swallowed down some coffee then continued, “I know your resources have to be stretched thin right now, Phil. Too many of the bases are compromised or just plain gone, it just felt like it was better to send agents back to you once I’d cleared them to the best of my abilities.” Clint shrugged then added, “I didn’t want to add more to the mess you and the others were dealing with.”

“I wouldn’t have cared about that,” Phil said, reaching out to Clint for the first time since he reached the lake house. Phil let his fingers curl naturally around Clint’s fingers, and smiled gently at him. “I missed you a lot—I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I wished you were with the rest of us, and not just because we needed someone else with higher clearance levels.”

Clint scooted over until he was seated next to Phil, and rested his head on Phil’s shoulder. “I’ve missed you too.”

Phil finally took a breath and asked the only question that was on his mind, the only question that mattered. “Clint? Not that I’m at all upset about this turn of events, but what made you choose to get back in touch now? What’s changed?”

“I’m tired, Phil.” He looked back up at Phil. “I’m tired of being alone, tired of missing you. It’s a new year—it’s time to try something new. And I wanted to come back to you.”

“I’m glad you finally did,” Phil said, and wrapped his arms around Clint, hugging him firmly. Clint just smiled in response and held onto Phil just as tightly.

They both knew that there were going to be more than a couple long talks in their future. Discussions about Hydra, SHIELD, the Avengers, and their own relationship were all yet to come. But for the time being, Phil and Clint were finally reunited and things felt right between them for the first time in months. It was a new year, and anything could happen.


End file.
